DIY Sunday Service Kit 08/01/2023 - Motto Text Sunday - Hebrews 3:12

 

Welcome to the first DIY Sunday Service Kit of 2023 ... and may it prove to be a Happy New Year for us all!

Being the first Sunday of the year we are declaring it 'Motto Text Sunday', and today we'll be taking a topical look at Hebrews 3:12. Here's a taster:

Now let's take a moment to pray:

Dear Lord and loving Heavenly Father we thank you that you have brought us safely to the end of the last year, with all its challenges and its joys, and set us off on the path you intend for us to follow in 2023.

Grant us a close walk with you this year, ears that are attentive to your voice and hearts that are filled with joy as we ponder your grace and glory, and inspire us afresh to live as the people of our God.

We ask for Jesus' sake.

AMEN.

Here's a cracker from Sovereign Grace to sing at the start of a new year ...

Let's take this opportunity at the start of the year to pray for our land, for its spiritual condition and the welfare of all of our people.

Let's pray for the weak and the vulnerable in our society

• For those who are elderly and infirm
• For those who are young and living in relative poverty, where the recession we are currently experiencing is being particularly felt
• For those who are suffering ill health and those who are struggling under adverse circumstances at present in our NHS to provide the care that they require

Let's pray for the leaders in commerce, the professions, in public service and in trade unions

• We pray for wisdom, compassion, insight and leadership for those who lead in all the institutions and organisations of our land and our state
• We pray for integrity, responsibility and justice to be at the core of the ethos of those who lead in our society
• We pray particularly for those who represent us in our politics, for a selfless devotion to public duty, a right-minded passion for what is right and perseverance in seeking the good of others that our politicians represent without fear or favouritism

And let's pray for the spiritual restoration of our people

Our Father we sense a spiritual hunger and a feeling of being bereft in our land. A loneliness and an emptiness as if someone is missing from the lives of people who have rejected and turned from our Living God.

• We pray for the leaders of the high-visibility churches and the large congregations that feature in the consciousness of the people of Wales, that they will be kept from drifting from the Lord, from the conduct that results from such spiritual drifting and from the damage that can so easily be done to the cause of the Gospel in Wales

We pray that you will reform your Church in our land.

• We pray that those who love you and who seek you faithfully will be filled with the Spirit of God and with a love for the things of God ... 
• We pray that you will raise up and anoint with your Spirit a people who will proclaim you and represent you to the land of Wales, that we might once more know the conviction of your truth as we hear these servants of yours preach the Gospel to life-changing effect with the Holy Spirit sent down from Heaven.

We pray that you will empower your Church in our land.

• We pray for the effectiveness of the preaching of the Gospel in Wales, that it will become compelling and attractive as the loveliness and the graciousness of Christ take hold of the hearts of people as yet unsaved
• We pray for the empowered preaching of the Gospel to draw people in large numbers from amongst those who have as yet had no constructive thought of God to hear about Him and to personally hear from Him
• We pray that there will be a new and large-scale turning of the hearts of the people from their materialistic and God-defying idols ... whatever these may be ... to love, follow and serve the Lord of Glory.

We pray that you will revive and build your Church in our land.

And we ask these things Lord because we see the needs of our people, the damage that is being done to them by their being like sheep without a shepherd here, and because we dare to ask because we have seen your emboldening grace and mercy taking hold of and transforming even OUR undeserving hearts.

So we pray in Jesus' Name.

AMEN.

Click the open Bible below to be taken to today's reading

City Alight lead us into a really good set of New Years resolutions here ...

It's time to open up the Bible together ...

(don't forget there's a transcript to be had with the audio version ... check it out on the podcast page you land on when you click the graphic above)

Here's the video of that sermon

Our last song today expresses the Christian's confidence 

in the God we pursue ...

Let's pray

Father we pray for the determination to fix our eyes on Jesus in 2023.

We ask that we shall not turn away from the Living God.

We ask that you will make us loyal and faithful to you and loyal and faithful also in encouraging one another, every day, as long as it is called 'today', to help one another to keep away from sin's deceitfulness.

We ask that you will enable and empower us to hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.

Inspire us we pray with thoughts of the Jesus we meet in the Scripture, in our personal way with you and in the fellowship we have with all those who authentically was with our God.

Keep us in and bring others onto the Way that is everlasting.

We ask for Jesus' sake.

AMEN.

Thanks for being with us here today.

If you would like to continue to worship with us as we give to the Lord's work around here, please click the bag to be taken to our giving link ... and may God bless your week in His fellowship and service!

Until next time ...